


Tied Up

by Goldy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-08 19:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1952742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor comes up with a brilliant plan to keep Rose from getting into trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tied Up

The Doctor had never had a companion ignore ‘don’t wander off’ quite like Rose Tyler. He was even beginning to suspect she didn’t understand the very basic meaning of the words.

She seemed to take each warning as some sort of challenge. It was maddening. She was, after all, only human. He was only going to get some sixty more years with her, so the least she could do was stay safe in the meantime.

The point was, it was high time he did something about it.

Which was why, some fifty odd days after retrieving her from the parallel world, he cornered her in the console room with a grin so wide it hurt.

“Oh, god,” she said, paling. “You’ve gotten into the coffee again.”

“Ha, very funny,” he muttered. “No—I need you to hold out your wrist.”

Rose blinked to show her confusion, but he stared her down until she complied.

He dug a long piece of tooth floss out of his pocket. Technically, of course, it was an Impervious Companion Search and Finder, but it was near enough to floss.

“Uh… Doctor?” Rose said as he began tying the floss around her wrist. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Hmm?” he said. He stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth to concentrate. “Aha! That should do it.”

She looked down at her wrist. “Do what?”

He held up his own wrist, proudly demonstrating that he’d tied the other end of the floss around it.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Gave us a good twenty meters or so—should avoid anything terribly embarrassing.”

Rose’s look wasn’t the overjoyed expression he was expecting.

“You tied us together?” she hissed.

“Yes,” he said. “And even secured it with a Time Lord slipknot, tightest knot in existence, you know. Just think—Rose, next time we get separated, all we’ll have to do is follow the floss until we get to the other person. And believe me, this piece of floss can survive just about anything. Even alternate universes.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me I’m not a genius.”

Rose gnawed on her bottom lip, looking torn between hitting him and hugging him.

“This… doesn’t seem a little… I dunno, like paranoia?”

He quite impressively refrained from pointing out that this was entirely her fault.

“I’m not losing you again,” he said. Vehemently. Just so she understood.

“Doctor.” She idly played with the floss with her free hand. “Life isn’t nothing without risk, yeah? The danger has always been a part of this life. It never bothered you before.”

“And _this_ ,” he said, “is about _ameliorating_ those risks. Come on, Rose, it’s not like we don’t spend all our time together, anyway.” He dropped his voice and leaned in close to her ear. “Even _sleep_ together now…”

She shivered, but then pushed him back, obviously not convinced by the simple brilliance of this new plan. “What if the string breaks?”

“It is _not_ just a string,” he said. “And it won’t. Can’t. Made out of the TARDIS, Rose. What sort of Time Lord to you think I am?”

He saw a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “What happens when I get up to pee in the middle of the night?”

“Twenty meters,” the Doctor repeated. “That’s… nearly the entire length of a swimming pool. Won’t even notice. ”

“Or what if you’re down working in the console room and I want to go get a snack?”

“I’ll go with you,” he said reasonably.

“Or what if we’re out investigating something, yeah, and I wander off—”

“I never said it wasn’t without _flaws_ ,” he interrupted snappishly. “Still. Bound to come in handy, don’t you reckon? The way you seem to find trouble—”

“Oi,” she said. “Look who’s talking!”

“I _mean_ it,” he said. “I’m not losing you. Not again. The Impervious Companion Search and Finder just… eases that along. In fact, you probably won’t even notice it’s there. See how light it is?”

She shifted her wrist up and down and he raised his eyebrows and nodded encouragingly.

“I’ll know it’s there,” Rose muttered. “Cause you’ll be at the other end of it!”

“Yes. Well,” he said, clearing his throat and trying not to look too injured. “I’ll be… quiet. Maybe. Sometimes. I’ll _try_ , at least.”

Rose sighed and gave him a look that plainly told him she thought he was being silly.

“Oh, Rose, honestly—it’s not _that_ bad,” he said. “It’s just a little piece of string. That’s all. An impervious piece of string, but still a string.”

He widened in his eyes in an attempt to look as innocent as possible.

Rose looked at him, hesitated, and then moved forward to hug him. “You’re daft,” she said.

“I am not,” he said. “I think _concerned_ might be more appropriate. Or even _careful_. But not daft.”

She squeezed him tighter, but then tilted her chin up to look at him. “Doctor,” she said softly. “You know this is overkill, don’t you?”

“What’s overkill?” he said.

She leaned her forehead back against his shoulder and sighed. “It was hard for you, wasn’t it? When I was gone?”

He didn’t answer.

“It was hard for me, too,” she said, after a pause. “But you can’t… tying us together isn’t a solution, Doctor. It just… it isn’t.”

He tilted his head so his nose brushed her hair. Clearly, he’d gone about this wrong. He _should_ have slipped the floss around her foot in the middle of the night when she wasn’t expecting it.

“Right,” he said half-heartedly.

“But…” Rose said. He looked down at her hopefully and she grinned. “Not such a bad idea, is it? I mean, about finding a way back to each other after getting separated. What about some sort of wireless homing device? Like they’re always going on about in the movies?”

“I… suppose that might work,” the Doctor said.

“Be loads more practical,” Rose said. She pulled away to beam at him. “Don’t you reckon?”

He hated when she looked at him like that. He always did stupid things when she looked at him like that. (Like risk a paradox by taking her to see Pete Tyler. As for instance.)

“It’s not… too James Bond, you don’t think?” he said.

“Nah,” Rose said, still grinning.

He kissed her nose. Cheerful again, he said, “Now, this— _this_ could be a challenge—wireless tracking device made out of the TARDIS. Bit like mixing the very old with modern day tech—what is it?”

Rose was staring very hard at her wrist, dismayed expression on her face. “Um, Doctor? If this thing is impervious, how are we supposed to get it _off_?”  



End file.
